cyberspace rape and reality
Pour comprendre ce texte, il faut lire le texte de Julian Dubbell, témoin d'un viol dans le cyber espace (espace virtuel - Internet). Vous pouvez trouver ce texte, ici:
http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html
How real is a rape in cyberspace? In what way(s) could it be considered a real event, in what way(s) not?
In order to understand the world, philosophers (as everybody unconsciously does) use specific tools, known as concepts, to analyse it and act on it. But, like real tools (a screwdriver for example), concepts are not adapted to every task. Therefore, with the development of new phenomena, (or, if we continue the metaphor between a screwdriver and a concept: the development of new types of screws), concepts may be outdated and not adapted to understand these phenomena. With the recent and broad development of a powerful media, the Internet, we are facing such a development of new phenomena, on a world wide scale, such as virtual community, or more precisely, the possibility of rape in cyberspace.
Here, we will discuss the extent to which a rape in cyberspace is real. First, in order to try to understand this question and try to answer it, we ought to say that reality is considered here as a concept, as a tool. And as every tool, conceptual or mechanical, it needs methodology that we will develop in a short deepening of the metaphor between concepts and screwdrivers. Screwdrivers are created for screws (and not the opposite that is screws created for screwdrivers). Then if we have a certain kind of screw but no screwdrivers adapted to it, then you will analyse the shape of the screw and created an adapted screwdriver, not the opposite, that is adapting the screw to the screwdriver you have. Just like screwdrivers are created for screws, concepts are created for instances. So here, we will try to see if there is an adapted tool already available to understand a cyber-rape (a rape in cyberspace), a concept as it has been mainly developed so far. If there is not, we will propose in the conclusion a new concept that would allow us to have a better analysis of the instance.
We will therefore discuss if the concept of reality is a good tool to analyse this particular event. I would like to add that because rape is a “hot topic”, that it implies lot of emotional reactions, it is important to say that no judgement is done on the gravity of a rape. Thus, if we speak of virtual rape, we do not imply a depreciative evaluation compared to a real rape. In any case, we will work with a neutral definition of rape as a sexual relation in which at least one of the protagonists is unwilling to have sex.
The philosophical field that tries to answer the question “What is reality?” is called metaphysics. Then metaphysical questioning of a rape would be: what makes a rape be real? Here, it is worthy to try several tools, or conceptions of reality. There are two main conceptions of reality in past philosophy: materialism and idealism.
Materialism has been developed very early in the history of philosophy, especially by the atomists, Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus, but also by Aristotle, the Stoics, and is now a widely accepted conception of reality. According to materialists, reality is matter, and nothing else. If something is material, then it is real. Here, if we are to apply materialism to a rape, then, rape is real if it is material. Rape is indeed a material event, a specific configuration of atoms situated in space and time.
Thus, in an extreme materialist analysis, if we consider that a rape (in cyberspace or in “matterspace”) is real, then a rape does not differ much from normal sex. Indeed, the fact that one of the rape protagonists is not willing to have sex can hardly be pictured in terms of atoms. Moreover, even if a cyberspace is based on matter (material servers, material wires, material computers, material bodies that type on their keyboard…), the affection between members does not define the affection they have together. As Julian Dubbell puts it, in a cyberspace “No body touched. Whatever physical interaction occurred consisted of a mingling of electronic signals sent from sites spread out between
A strong version of idealism have been developed by Plato, who considers that what makes something to be real is not in our material world but in another world, the World of Ideas that have a transcendent status. Therefore, what makes a rape real is the correspondence between the transcendent idea of rape and the rape as a material event. We can know transcendent idea in using our rational thinking ability. In a softer version of idealism, which I would call personal idealism, a rape is real if it corresponds to your personal idea of what a rape is. If you consider that a rape in cyberspace is a rape, then the “cyber rape” is real.
What could be the idea of rape? Using my rational thinking ability, I can picture that rape involve a sexual relation in which one or more of the protagonist is unwilling to have this relation. Concerning rape in cyberspace, I can rationally conceive that one or more of the protagonists can be unwilling, the rapist using a voodoo doll, but it is hard to conceive rationally that there is a sexual activity here, because it requires a rational analysis of what sex is, which is hardly appropriate.
Concerning an idealist conception of reality, both in transcendental idealism and in personal idealism, there are two alternatives. On the one hand, if you consider a rape in cyberspace as real, then you can hardly make a distinction between a material rape and a virtual rape. ; On the other hand, if you consider it as unreal, then you cannot explain the psychological consequences (Julian Dubbell uses the world “trauma”) on the “cyber raped” persons, and their reaction to it.
We have seen that reality as a concept, both in its materialist and idealist versions, is hardly appropriate to analyse a rape in cyberspace. To consider it as real either leads to shade the difference between “normal” sex and rape (materialism), or to shade the difference between “virtual sex” and “material sex” (idealism). On the other hand, if we are to consider it as unreal, we are unable to explain the psychological consequences of a cyber-rape. These two consequences show that reality is hardly an appropriate tool to analyse a rape in cyberspace.
Therefore, we ought to propose an adapted tool: the concept of virtuality. A conception of virtuality has been developed by Gilles Deleuze. According to Deleuze, the virtual aspect of something is the imagined potentiality of something real. This conception is really applicable to the Internet. First, to consider the cyberspace as a virtual space, or “imagined space”, allows one to explain why there is so much utopianism on the Internet. As a virtual space, it is not subject to material limitations, what can leave space for pure imagination. Here, the rape in cyberspace is virtual, and can only be virtual: voodoo doll only exist in imagination (at least, that what I believe).
However, a purely virtuality-centred analysis of the Internet cannot explain everything. Indeed, Internet is an interface between reality and virtuality. Therefore we ought to try to understand the close links between reality and virtuality. On the one hand, virtual reality is the concept that allows us to analyse the actualization of imagination, the realization of virtuality. The cyberspace is then an imagined space, but it is realized, made concrete through the appearance of material reality (a mansion, for example). On the other hand, real virtuality is the concept that allows us to consider the real aspects of virtuality, such as the real origin of imagination or the influence of imagination in real life. For example it can allow us to explain the reality of a virtual rape, how it has real effects, such as “post traumatic tears”.